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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   35013 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022

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From an op-ed at Harvard Crimson (via Marginal Revolution):

Harvard employs 7,024 total full-time administrators, only slightly fewer than the undergraduate population. What do they all do?

[snip]

Yet of the 7,000-strong horde, it seems that many members’ primary purpose is to squander away tax-free money intended for academic work on initiatives, projects, and committees that provide scant value to anyone’s educational experience.

For example, last December, all Faculty of Arts and Sciences affiliates received an email from Dean Claudine Gay announcing the final report of the FAS Task Force on Visual Culture and Signage, a task force itself created by recommendation of the Presidential Task Force on Inclusion and Belonging. This task force was composed of 24 members: six students, nine faculty members, and nine administrators. The task force produced a 26-page report divided into seven sections, based upon a survey, focus groups, and 15 separate meetings with over 500 people total. The report dedicated seven pages to its recommendations, which ranged from “Clarify institutional authority over FAS visual culture and signage” to “Create a dynamic program of public art in the FAS.” In response to these recommendations, Dean Gay announced the creation of a new administrative post, the “FAS campus curator,” and a new committee, the “FAS Standing Committee on Visual Culture and Signage.”

Regardless of your stance on the goal of fostering a more inclusive visual culture, the procedural absurdity is clear. A presidential task force led to the creation of an FAS task force which, after expending significant time, effort, and resources, led to the creation of a single administrative job and a committee with almost the exact name as the second task force. I challenge anyone other than the task force members themselves to identify the value created for a single Harvard student’s educational experience.

I enjoyed reading the article, and as someone not at all affiliated with Harvard I am happy to argue against some of the ideas the author expressed.

Firstly, a quibble about facts:

In 1986, Harvard’s tuition was $10,266 ($27,914 adjusted for inflation). Today, Harvard’s tuition is $52,659, representing an 89 percent increase in real cost.

Yes, the sticker-prize tuition at Harvard has grown, as it has at other private colleges. But the question ought to be: do students actually pay more? According to College Scorecard, students [1] pay on average just under $14,000 per year--for everything, including living expenses. I don't have comparable data for 1986, but that's lower than the median for 4-year US colleges (which is around $19,500).

One may argue that all US colleges have bloated administration and thus increased cost, and I am sympathetic to that argument. But at least let's acknowledge that, regarding actual cost of attendance, Harvard seems to be doing better when compared not just to its peers but the set of all accredited US 4-year institutions.

Now, for the challenge that the author kindly provides:

I challenge anyone other than the task force members themselves to identify the value created for a single Harvard student’s educational experience.

I don't know any actual specifics, but I am willing to bet (a modest amount) that at some point in the past decade there were student protests at Harvard regarding the choice of art on display. Probably the protests involved non-white students, or people speaking on behalf of non-white students, and their main objection was something like: people of color don't feel welcome at this institution because all the prominently-displayed portraits are of white people. Likely some professors were part of the protesters.

Whatever your opinions are as to the validity of the protesters' claim that the choice of art affects non-white students, the protests themselves would be disruptive and/or stimulating to the educational experience. The president's response to create the task-force on the issue has calmed the protests (taking away the disruptive aspect ) while taking seriously the vocal minority's concerns. For those who found the protests stimulating to the educational experience (which includes acquisition and polish of social norms, and not merely subject matter studied in one's classes), the president's response models how one goes about addressing strongly-expressed concerns over some issue of institutional inertia.

It's still reasonable to ask: was the process that the president cost-effective in achieving its objectives? I would love to see someone try to analyze that! In my experience, service on such committees isn't directly compensated, though it does suck up substantial time. Like, did those six students, nine faculty members, and nine administrators have better things to do? They were either on that committee because they were deeply interested in the issue (the students and faculty), or because they were the nine administrators. Did those administrators have languishing tasks which would have actually been more important to address than calming down vocal protesters current and future? Will that new administrative post be filled by an already-existing Harvard employee, or are they actually hiring a brand-new administrator?

Inquiring minds kinda want to know.

[1] At least, students who filled out FAFSA and received any federal financial aid.

It's worth pointing out that Twitter is still fully operational two weeks after losing some huge percentage of its staff.

People on this very board were calling for near-certain failure due to key staff leaving. And while it's too early to say definitely, I think it's not too early to start updating in the direction that no, these staff were not in fact necessary to the continued operation of Twitter.

I'd imagine that the administrators of a university are even more unnecessary.

I agree that every one of these administrators aren't vital to the school's success. However, I think Twitter is the exception rather than the rule. You also have to consider that Twitter's changes are very recent and also came with a change in direction. Among other things, old Twitter valued content moderation while new Twitter does not. This wouldn't have any effect of Twitter being operational since that division didn't affect the online availability of Twitter.

old Twitter valued content moderation while new Twitter does not

This isn't true. People still get banned. The people who got fired were those who formed committees that decided on strategic bans. Here's a web of twitter we don't like, let's ban the biggest nodes to shut it down.

Harvard could easily cut 90% of its staff, as could any of these places where there aren't any physical goods and a surplus of cash.

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